The Town of Vail is throwing a community birthday party on Tuesday, Aug. 23 - 50 years to the day it became a new town. The celebration will include a variety of tributes, highlighted by a community gathering from 4 to 6 p.m. at Donovan Park and Pavilion with activities for the entire family.

Mark your calendars for the Town of Vail’s 17th annual "Celebrating Community" neighborhood picnic series Tuesday, July 12 at Bighorn Park in East Vail and Tuesday, Aug. 9 at Donovan Pavilion in West Vail. Each picnic will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. with free food and drink provided by the town on a first-come, first-served basis. The picnics provide community members with an opportunity to offer comments and suggestions about various topics and to meet members of the Vail Town Council and town staff.

The Town of Vail experienced numerous successes during 2015, highlighted by the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in February which generated world wide attention and amplified the resort’s preeminent leadership position. A continued focus on upgrading infrastructure and amenities to maintain Vail’s competitiveness resulted in decisions to move forward with a major remodel of the Vail Golf and Nordic Clubhouse, provide additional funding to ensure construction of the Vail I-70 Underpass, facilitate construction of the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens Education Center and build a state-of-the art skatepark. All the while, the town’s financial health remained strong with sales tax collections headed for another record year.

From hiking in the summer to skiing in the winter, there’s always something to do in Vail.

Visitors and residents alike enjoy the 1,100 acres of open space accounting for 50 percent of Vail’s town-owned land; 350,000 surrounding acres of national forest, crowned by 5,289 skiable acres on one of the largest and best ski mountains in the world.